Let’s jump ahead to that frabjous day when the race has been won — you have sold your first book and now it’s being published. But it comes at a terrible price. You now most likely have a disease: First Author-itis.
Oh, a few people escape it, but they are very noble people. I wasn’t among them. For about eight months, I was the center of the universe. Didn’t you know? Haven’t you heard? I WROTE A BOOK! I actually uttered those words at my first Bouchercon, upon meeting a woman, Sally Fellows, who would become a valued critic, dear friend and, eventually, the co-dedicatee of one of my books.
The thing is, I didn’t know I was in the grips of a self-centric fever. It was only when I diagnosed this virus in another writer, someone who went from being insufferable to being adorable in the blink of an eye that I began to put it together: First Author-itis. It reminds me of a scene in a book that I can’t recall just now, in which a child is told: “You have a bad case . . . of growing up.” (A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN? I am sure that Frannie decides that growing up ruins theater for her.)
But the thing is, I’m the one who always says you need an incredible combination of ignorance and arrogance to be a writer in the first place. First Author-itis actually stems from both conditions.
The good news is that it responds really well to heaping doses of reality. There is no better crash course in publishing and book-selling than a first novel. There will be a book-signing that no one attends. Why would they? No one’s ever heard of you. (This will be true of your second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc., too.) Friends will say, “I went to the bookstore and they’re sold out of your book. You must be so pleased.” Yes — wait, did they re-order it?
At any rate, you will survive it and, more importantly, your friends, family, editor and agent will survive it.
And if it doesn’t pass? Well, then you’re just an asshole and there’s no cure for that.
I did the self-diagnosis and quickly realized I am affected. http://www.anteropietila.com. Look it up and see why I feel the way I do.
I’m still chuckling over the ending of this post!
The problem (for the rest of us, anyway) is the truly insufferable, incurable assholes of the world are also unflinchingly self-satisfied – they’re just as they want to be.
Honestly though – I suspect that it is equally easy to be too much of a push-over; too yielding, too selfless. That’s the devil of the thing; I suspect (in your business) sometimes you’ve gotta be an unreasonable, unyielding, unalloyed asshole – or else events would threaten to steamroll right over you.
(I speak as one who gets steamrolled with some regularity; akin to being a strip of ‘incurable asphalt’)
I had only six months between the totally unexpected sale of my first book (it had been with Poisoned Pen for so long that I actually forgot they had it) and its publication. I was so unprepared, such a nervous wreck — I don’t how I survived it. Or how my husband survived it. I think I made every stupid mistake that it’s humanly possible to make. I was fortunate to have forgiving friends and to receive good advice from experienced authors. Now when new authors come to me seeking advice, I will answer a million nosy questions if that’s what it takes to calm them down and help them do the right thing. It’s easy to snicker and gossip about someone who’s inexperienced and making mistakes left and right, but the kind and decent thing to do is help if you can.
By the way, I would be overjoyed if someone said their local bookstore had sold out of my book (even if they only had one copy to begin with). What I usually get is, “Why isn’t your book in bookstores?” Giving the same speech about small presses and big bookstore chains over and over gets old fast. We may all have grievances against Amazon, but there’s a reason why they have so many customers: they will sell you any book you want.
I’m as enamored with Brian’s pun as I was with the original closing comment of today’s dose of La Lippman. And no Laura, as an early reader I didn’t detect the “center of the Universe” syndrome. Now that I reflect on it though it bears a lot in common with being a bride or being pregnant. And then it goes away. And if it doesn’t well then you are …… And it did and you aren’t.
Antero, for what it’s worth, Not In My Neighborhood is well displayed in the Pikesville B&N. Had no trouble finding it. I definitely can hear Barbara telling you to write a book!